Sub-cultural diversity in Greece

As previously mentioned Greece has a reputation of being ethnically homogenous: 98% to 95% of it's 10.2 million people (1991) being ethnic Greeks.

Speaking as Anthropologists, we may affirm that 95% of the citizens of Greece will openly and - probably somehow aggressively - claim an Hellenic ethnic identity. This is a dominant feeling, even in a post-modern era of shifting identities. (In this respect one should be reminded that half of the 1991 population of Greece are first and second generation descendants of people that have been "expelled", "exchanged" or otherwise ethnically segregated. They come from all parts of Anatolia, from Romania, Egypt, the Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, as well as from Thrace and the neighboring Balkan states of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. At this point we must caution the reader to the fact that studies of Modern Greek societies also need to be historically embedded.

Nevertheless deeper consideration clearly show that ethnic and subcultural diversity exists in Greece, even if factual evidence is sensitive to report. It is actually an historic fact that the "katharevousa" was imposed as an official language in an effort to deal with the country's cultural mosaic through a mono-cultural education and by means of a constructed common state language.
In the 18th century the performing arts and popular puns usually ridiculed the dialectal "babylonia" that prevailed in Greece. These satirical shows were still fashionable in the 1960's, when the shadow theater - called Karagiozis - a potent instrument of cultural communication and exchanges, was still making fun of the different subcultural Greek vernaculars. Then, from 1967 to 1974 it was the gross misuse of the official language by the spokesmen of the military regime that fed the marketplace with language puns.

It is therefore evident that popular stereotypes, satire and the so called "common sense" has always accepted the existence of regional Greek subcultures, the most notable of which are:

1. the subculture of the island of Crete, where a written literary language flourished in the early modern times;
2. the subculture of the Ionian islands (Corfu, Cephallonia, Zante) marked by centuries of Venetian domination. It is this subculture that has provided modern Greece with it's first "school" of literature and poetry;
3. the subculture of Constantinople Roums (Romioi) - now largely transplanted in Thessalonika (the second largest city of Greece with about 800,000 inhabitants);
4. the subcultures of the large Aegean islands (Lesbos, Chios, Samos);
5. the subculture of the Pontic Greeks who are scattered in various parts of mainland Greece. The Pontic Greek vernacular language is not easily understood by other Greeks and before the fall of the Soviet Union and the arrival of the Russian Greeks, it mainly used as an "in group" language.
6. the subcultures that are coalescing in the urban centers of Central Greece (Thessaly and Epirus)

In this list we have not included Cypriot Greek. In that country, education and the media are promoting a linguistic convergence with the Athenian literate language but largely accept Cypriot words, expressions and pronunciations. A strategy of complementary between Athenian Greek and the urban Cypriot dialect seem to have been adopted in spite the marked opposition of the athenian education authorities.

At this stage we must clearly state that "multicultural education" is not yet a reality in the compulsory school system. Practically it is only after 1982 that schools introduced supportive teaching to children of repatriate or even immigrants. It is therefore only since the 1990's that the need to create specific teaching materials and educational aids has been felt, and it is just now that the teaching of Modern Greek as a foreign language came into being. However, tutorial courses constitute "the very beginning of intercultural education in Greece" (Markou 1997: 60, emphasis in the text).

Plurality and Multiculturalism are obviously not limited to the variety of Greek sub-cultures that come from a very large geographic area spanning from the Caucasus to parts of Southern Italy. Greece also hosts a number of indigenous populations that form genuine bilingual communities. According to "fiable sources" they represent at least 5% of the total number of inhabitants, but this percentage may prove to be larger as the concept of cultural plurality will impose itself in everyday reality.
We must however underline that it is the sudden inflow of immigrants both the foreign and those of Greek descent who came in Greece after the fall of the Soviet and People's regimes that is breaking down the traditional resistance to multiculturalism.

Already top-down political efforts, with the help of the European Communities and of Unesco, have been developing a pilot project for Roma (Gypsy) children. Romas are taught their language and Programme "GENESIS" is aiming at teaching them the Greek language. As a result - along with the so-called "established" Muslim Minority of Thrace (Turks and Pomaks) - the Roma have now been recognized as a distinct ethnic group and their educational needs have been officially accepted.

Simultaneously bottom-up demographic changes are bringing into the classrooms a growing number of immigrant children. These children taken together with the children of culturally and ethnically plural households will soon represent a substantial percentage of the compulsory school population of the urban centers of Greece.

It is therefore in this perspective that we propose to take a rapid look into the Linguistic and Ethnic diversity which really exists and is building up in Greece.

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